Wrongfully Removing Children from their homes and using the Gay's as a Diversion
Posted by Justice4Us on August 3, 2008 at 11:10am in Politics
I am of the opionion that this issue about gay's adopting and/or fostering childern is only a diversion, the real issue is the wrongfully removal of the childern from the start.
The bottom line is that the states and local government profit off of the removal of the children, therefore, it matter's not who adopts these childern in the eye's of the politician's, the bottom line is that the childern are being placed in a effort to received the federal financial incentives.
The diversion comes about by using the gays as the topic of discussion, whereby our children are being abused in foster cares, killed, legally kidnapped and assaulted across the board once removed from their homes.
I find it offensive to use any group or person's be it gay's, singles, blacks, hispanics, etc. to create a discussion all in an effort to divert the attention from the real issues. The real issue is the abuse of the childern, the drugging of our children, the legally kidnapping of our children all in the name of money.
My website is www.drshirleymoore.com click on Next, on the 2nd page click the Media Release that is found in the body of the page. You will see the real people and/or stories as to what is really occurring within the foster care and adoption scheme.
http://blacktalkradio.ning.com/forum/topics/2203159:Topic:11254?commentId=2203159:Comment:120147
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Home again finally / Ogden mom wins five-year battle with DCFS for son
Home again finally / Ogden mom wins five-year battle with DCFS for son
By Carlos Mayorga (Standard-Examiner staff)
Last Edit: Mar 1 2010 - 11:00pm
OGDEN -- An Ogden mother who battled state child welfare officials for several years to regain custody of one of her two sons finally has her family back together.
A family court judge recently granted Tina Poe full custody of her younger son, Kenny, 12. Poe regained custody of older son Dylan, 17, in 2007.
The three had been torn apart for nearly five years until Kenny moved back with his mother on a 90-day trial basis late last year. Poe had her last court appearance on the case Feb. 4.
The Poes admit their reunification hasn't been a smooth adjustment, but the trio recently moved into a newly remodeled home where they are grateful to have a fresh start.
"All I was asking for was the chance to do this," Poe said. "Most people quit. Most people back down. I didn't. I went full force."
Officials with the Utah Division of Child and Family Services had previously refused to relinquish custody of Kenny, arguing he displayed disturbing behavioral problems.
Last summer, DCFS officials told the Standard-Examiner that Kenny's needs were far greater than what Poe could manage. They logged physical assaults against other children, profanity and stated he attempted to start a fire while in their custody, according to court documents.
During his time with DCFS, Kenny was in and out of foster care and group homes. He spent several months at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City after officials said he showed aggressive behavior that was dangerous to himself and others.
Poe admits Kenny has obstacles to overcome, but said much of his problem stems from being institutionalized and feeling upset about being away from his family. Now that Kenny has been home several months, Poe says many of those behaviors have gone away.
"We just couldn't get through to DCFS' minds that what we were saying was true," said Shawn Beus, Poe's pro bono attorney. "Tina was amazing. She kept plugging away. She stayed consistent on a daily basis."
Poe and Beus say the turning point in the case came when state Rep. Neil A. Hansen, D-Ogden, noticed her story and organized a meeting with DCFS officials.
"The state thought it was a better parent," Beus said. "We told the judge 'give us a chance.' "
Kenny recently graduated from an anger-management class. He still attends individual and group therapy, and the Poes regularly participate in family therapy.
Kenny's teacher at Horace Mann Elementary in Ogden sends home a daily behavioral report and lately, they have been near perfect. The school also has asked Kenny to mentor another child his age who is having similar behavioral problems.
Poe lost custody of her two children in 2005 when she was convicted of aggravated assault after a fight with her now ex-husband. Poe and her attorney have always maintained it was Poe's husband who tried to attack her with a knife, and he was hurt after she grabbed it in self-defense.
While Poe was serving 16 months in prison, her husband abandoned the boys and took off to Florida. Dylan and Kenny were already in state custody by the time she got out.
Poe regained custody of Dylan nine months after successfully completing parole and courses in parenting, anger management and alcohol treatment.
According to DCFS, in fiscal year 2009, 44 percent of children in their custody were reunified with a parent or their primary caregiver, while 25 percent were adopted and 14 percent were placed with other relatives. Eleven percent were emancipated or reached adulthood.
Poe has an associate degree in criminal justice and says she wants to go back to school soon to become a paralegal. With those credentials, Poe hopes she can soon become an advocate for parents who are fighting the state to get their children back.
"I'm not saying they're all bad at DCFS, but there are things that need to be fixed," Poe said. "Who ultimately pays the price when they don't get it right? The children."
http://www.standard.net/topics/health-home/2010/03/01/home-again-finally-ogden-mom-wins-five-year-battle-dcfs-son
By Carlos Mayorga (Standard-Examiner staff)
Last Edit: Mar 1 2010 - 11:00pm
OGDEN -- An Ogden mother who battled state child welfare officials for several years to regain custody of one of her two sons finally has her family back together.
A family court judge recently granted Tina Poe full custody of her younger son, Kenny, 12. Poe regained custody of older son Dylan, 17, in 2007.
The three had been torn apart for nearly five years until Kenny moved back with his mother on a 90-day trial basis late last year. Poe had her last court appearance on the case Feb. 4.
The Poes admit their reunification hasn't been a smooth adjustment, but the trio recently moved into a newly remodeled home where they are grateful to have a fresh start.
"All I was asking for was the chance to do this," Poe said. "Most people quit. Most people back down. I didn't. I went full force."
Officials with the Utah Division of Child and Family Services had previously refused to relinquish custody of Kenny, arguing he displayed disturbing behavioral problems.
Last summer, DCFS officials told the Standard-Examiner that Kenny's needs were far greater than what Poe could manage. They logged physical assaults against other children, profanity and stated he attempted to start a fire while in their custody, according to court documents.
During his time with DCFS, Kenny was in and out of foster care and group homes. He spent several months at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City after officials said he showed aggressive behavior that was dangerous to himself and others.
Poe admits Kenny has obstacles to overcome, but said much of his problem stems from being institutionalized and feeling upset about being away from his family. Now that Kenny has been home several months, Poe says many of those behaviors have gone away.
"We just couldn't get through to DCFS' minds that what we were saying was true," said Shawn Beus, Poe's pro bono attorney. "Tina was amazing. She kept plugging away. She stayed consistent on a daily basis."
Poe and Beus say the turning point in the case came when state Rep. Neil A. Hansen, D-Ogden, noticed her story and organized a meeting with DCFS officials.
"The state thought it was a better parent," Beus said. "We told the judge 'give us a chance.' "
Kenny recently graduated from an anger-management class. He still attends individual and group therapy, and the Poes regularly participate in family therapy.
Kenny's teacher at Horace Mann Elementary in Ogden sends home a daily behavioral report and lately, they have been near perfect. The school also has asked Kenny to mentor another child his age who is having similar behavioral problems.
Poe lost custody of her two children in 2005 when she was convicted of aggravated assault after a fight with her now ex-husband. Poe and her attorney have always maintained it was Poe's husband who tried to attack her with a knife, and he was hurt after she grabbed it in self-defense.
While Poe was serving 16 months in prison, her husband abandoned the boys and took off to Florida. Dylan and Kenny were already in state custody by the time she got out.
Poe regained custody of Dylan nine months after successfully completing parole and courses in parenting, anger management and alcohol treatment.
According to DCFS, in fiscal year 2009, 44 percent of children in their custody were reunified with a parent or their primary caregiver, while 25 percent were adopted and 14 percent were placed with other relatives. Eleven percent were emancipated or reached adulthood.
Poe has an associate degree in criminal justice and says she wants to go back to school soon to become a paralegal. With those credentials, Poe hopes she can soon become an advocate for parents who are fighting the state to get their children back.
"I'm not saying they're all bad at DCFS, but there are things that need to be fixed," Poe said. "Who ultimately pays the price when they don't get it right? The children."
http://www.standard.net/topics/health-home/2010/03/01/home-again-finally-ogden-mom-wins-five-year-battle-dcfs-son
Regulations sought for foster kids prescribed psychiatric drugs
FLORIDA LEGISLATURE
Regulations sought for foster kids prescribed psychiatric drugs
In the wake of a Broward child's death, state lawmakers will consider a bill designed to make it harder for child welfare workers to use mental health drugs to control foster kids.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
CMARBIN@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Florida lawmakers will once again consider a measure to rein in the use of psychiatric drugs among foster children in the wake of last year's death of a 7-year-old Broward boy who was on a cocktail of mood-altering drugs.
A new bill, filed Friday by state Sen. Ronda Storms, a Brandon Republican, would, among other things, require that foster children assent to the use of psychiatric drugs. The proposed law would require caseworkers to explain to children, in a manner they can understand, why the drugs are necessary and what risks they carry.
``It's a huge step forward for the children of Florida,'' Robin Rosenberg, deputy director of Florida's Children First, said of the provision. ``It's integral to effective treatment for children to be involved at a developmentally appropriate level.''
The requirement that foster kids be involved in their own treatment was one of scores of recommendations made by a child welfare work group of administrators from the Department of Children & Families, doctors and children's advocates who studied the death of Gabriel Myers last April.
Gabriel, originally from Ohio, entered state care in June 2008 when his mother was found slumped in her car in a restaurant parking lot -- with a narcotic pill bottles surrounding her. Gabriel hanged himself on April 16, using a retractable shower cord as a noose.
In the aftermath, The Miami Herald reported that the boy had been prescribed several anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs in the months before his death. Most of the drugs have not been approved for use with children, and some have been linked to serious side effects, including an increased risk of suicide.
While Storm's bill tracks most of the work group's findings, it differs in some respects. One major difference: The work group wanted each child being administered psychotropic drugs to have the benefit of a lawyer at all court appearances.
Storms' bill requires the state to appoint guardians ad litem, or volunteer lay guardians. Storms said the guardians are qualified for the role because they already are involved in the children's lives.
Rosenberg, who was a member of the Gabriel Myers Work Group, said ``the work group concluded that attorneys are best suited to protect children's interests when prescribing medication,'' she said.
The bill would also:
• Prohibit children in state care from being involved in clinical trials designed to determine the safety or efficacy of drugs that have not yet been approved by the FDA.
• Require an independent medication review before psychiatric drugs can be administered to children 10 or younger.
• Require mental-health professionals to prepare an overall treatment plan, including the use of counseling and therapy, when children are prescribed psychiatric drugs.
``We want to give a preference to behavioral therapy,'' said Storms, the bill's sponsor. ``We're not going to just drug them through their childhood and adolescence.''
Storms said she thought the prescribing of such drugs has become a crutch for therapists, who are eschewing traditional couch chats with children. Research shows, she said, that some doctors are writing one prescription for a child every three minutes.
DCF administrators have supported the legislation, which marks the second time this decade that lawmakers have sought to crack down on mental-health drug use among kids in state care.
``With young kids, we really need to err on the side of caution,'' said DCF Secretary George Sheldon, who has supported both the work group and the legislation.
State Sen. Nan Rich, a Sunrise Democrat who is vice chair of the children's committee, said the bill will fail if lawmakers decline to set aside enough money to pay for it -- especially the provision that requires guardians for foster kids who are prescribed drugs.
Miami Herald staff writer Robert Samuels contributed to this report from Tallahassee.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/02/1507445/regulations-sought-for-foster.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=1606957#Comments_Container
Regulations sought for foster kids prescribed psychiatric drugs
In the wake of a Broward child's death, state lawmakers will consider a bill designed to make it harder for child welfare workers to use mental health drugs to control foster kids.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
CMARBIN@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Florida lawmakers will once again consider a measure to rein in the use of psychiatric drugs among foster children in the wake of last year's death of a 7-year-old Broward boy who was on a cocktail of mood-altering drugs.
A new bill, filed Friday by state Sen. Ronda Storms, a Brandon Republican, would, among other things, require that foster children assent to the use of psychiatric drugs. The proposed law would require caseworkers to explain to children, in a manner they can understand, why the drugs are necessary and what risks they carry.
``It's a huge step forward for the children of Florida,'' Robin Rosenberg, deputy director of Florida's Children First, said of the provision. ``It's integral to effective treatment for children to be involved at a developmentally appropriate level.''
The requirement that foster kids be involved in their own treatment was one of scores of recommendations made by a child welfare work group of administrators from the Department of Children & Families, doctors and children's advocates who studied the death of Gabriel Myers last April.
Gabriel, originally from Ohio, entered state care in June 2008 when his mother was found slumped in her car in a restaurant parking lot -- with a narcotic pill bottles surrounding her. Gabriel hanged himself on April 16, using a retractable shower cord as a noose.
In the aftermath, The Miami Herald reported that the boy had been prescribed several anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs in the months before his death. Most of the drugs have not been approved for use with children, and some have been linked to serious side effects, including an increased risk of suicide.
While Storm's bill tracks most of the work group's findings, it differs in some respects. One major difference: The work group wanted each child being administered psychotropic drugs to have the benefit of a lawyer at all court appearances.
Storms' bill requires the state to appoint guardians ad litem, or volunteer lay guardians. Storms said the guardians are qualified for the role because they already are involved in the children's lives.
Rosenberg, who was a member of the Gabriel Myers Work Group, said ``the work group concluded that attorneys are best suited to protect children's interests when prescribing medication,'' she said.
The bill would also:
• Prohibit children in state care from being involved in clinical trials designed to determine the safety or efficacy of drugs that have not yet been approved by the FDA.
• Require an independent medication review before psychiatric drugs can be administered to children 10 or younger.
• Require mental-health professionals to prepare an overall treatment plan, including the use of counseling and therapy, when children are prescribed psychiatric drugs.
``We want to give a preference to behavioral therapy,'' said Storms, the bill's sponsor. ``We're not going to just drug them through their childhood and adolescence.''
Storms said she thought the prescribing of such drugs has become a crutch for therapists, who are eschewing traditional couch chats with children. Research shows, she said, that some doctors are writing one prescription for a child every three minutes.
DCF administrators have supported the legislation, which marks the second time this decade that lawmakers have sought to crack down on mental-health drug use among kids in state care.
``With young kids, we really need to err on the side of caution,'' said DCF Secretary George Sheldon, who has supported both the work group and the legislation.
State Sen. Nan Rich, a Sunrise Democrat who is vice chair of the children's committee, said the bill will fail if lawmakers decline to set aside enough money to pay for it -- especially the provision that requires guardians for foster kids who are prescribed drugs.
Miami Herald staff writer Robert Samuels contributed to this report from Tallahassee.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/02/1507445/regulations-sought-for-foster.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=1606957#Comments_Container
Monday, March 1, 2010
Prison moms want more leeway in parental rights cases Bill sponsor hopeful Senate passage is near
Prison moms want more leeway in parental rights cases
Bill sponsor hopeful Senate passage is near
Note from unhappygrammy-This sounds like a good bill for NH seeing as parental rights are terminated every day due to the parents incarceration
By Faith Burkins-Gimzek
Assembly Corrections Committee Chairman Jeffrion Aubry emphasizes the importance of family as an incentive and support system for both parents who go to prison and their children. He is sponsoring a bill aimed at keeping families together when a member is incarcerated. Photo by Smita Bhooplapur, The Legislative Gazette.
March 01, 2010
The Senate seems poised to pass legislation this month that supporters say would help keep intact families separated by the criminal justice and child welfare systems.
Lawmakers, Office of Children and Family Services Commissioner Gladys Carrion and imprisoned women's rights advocates rallied outside the Senate Chamber Feb. 23 to support the Adoption and Safe Families Act Expanded Discretion Bill (S.2233-a/A.5462-a).
"I really am happy to be able to say to you that this legislation will definitely be passing in our house this session," said Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, chair of the Children and Families Committee and the bill's sponsor in the chamber.
"It will give families the fighting chance that they deserve to work towards rebuilding, to work towards keeping connections," said Tamar Kraft-Stolar, director of the Women in Prison Project for the Correctional Association of New York, which coordinated the Feb. 23 news conference. The Correctional Association has made passing this legislation one of its top priorities in its policy agenda for this year.
The Expanded Discretion bill would amend the Adoption and Safe Families Act, a federal law enacted in New York in 1999, which requires, with limited exceptions, foster care agencies to file a petition to terminate parental rights if a child has been in foster care for 15 of the previous 22 months.
Since a woman's median sentence in New York is 36 months, advocates of the bill say a majority of mothers are forced to give up their parental rights, often against the best interest of the child.
The bill has passed unanimously for two consecutive years in the Assembly and has now advanced to its third reading in the Senate.
It reached the Senate floor last session, but was never voted on because of the Senate coup last June.
The proposed legislation would increase a foster care agency's discretion in choosing whether to terminate parental rights and would give agencies the option of taking more time before filing termination of parental rights papers. The bill would also require courts to take into consideration the extenuating circumstances of a parent in the criminal justice system, making it easier for parents incarcerated or in residential substance abuse treatment to retain guardianship and custody of their children.
"[Current law] doesn't reflect the realities of the case and the time needed when the criminal justice system is involved," said Kraft-Stolar. She said there are, as the law stands, exceptions to the 15-month rule, but the exceptions are insufficient.
In the existing law's language, a foster care agency can delay filing termination papers if a child is placed with another family member, if the agency hadn't fulfilled its legal requirements to pursue reunification or if there is a "compelling reason" why it would not be in the best interest of the child to terminate parental rights. "There is some wiggle room … but not enough," Kraft-Stolar said.
According to the bill's justification, "In appropriate circumstances, caseworkers would have more time to work toward reunification or other permanent placements that do not involve severing family bonds forever." The bill memo also notes that this legislation would save the court system time and money by reducing the amount of costly termination hearings.
"What [the current law] does is it tips the balance inappropriately towards terminating parental rights in cases where a parent is in the criminal justice system, even when this outcome is not necessarily in the child's best interest and in the long-term interests of the family," Kraft-Stolar said.
Montgomery, D-Brooklyn, said many parents purposely avoid treatment because they are afraid of losing their children. "We want to make sure that parents can feel a sense of being … empowered as a parent, to be able to have a family when they come back. And that becomes an incentive, in fact, to be able to return as opposed to being a permanent prison person."
"[Incarcerated parent's] rights are terminated based on the fact that a parent's sentence is longer than the … law allows for them to be able to maintain their parental rights. Those children then get taken away, and the results of that are, in too many cases, those children also become part of the criminal justice system. We want to break that cycle," she said.
Assembly Corrections Committee Chairman Jeffrion Aubry, D-Queens, sponsor of the Assembly bill, emphasized the importance of family as an incentive and support system for those returning from prison or residential substance abuse treatment, and believes this bill will decrease re-internment. "We recognize that children are the unseen victims in this system," he said. "It works on both sides — it's good for the children, it's good for the parents."
Sen. Diane Savino, D-Staten Island, a co-sponsor of the bill, spoke from personal experience as a social worker with the state Child Welfare Association.
"There was something I had then that caseworkers today don't have," she said. "That was the discretion to make decisions based upon what I knew about the mother of that child, the relationship with that child, the level of planning and whether or not reunification would be successful. Caseworkers today don't have that discretion."
Mothers who had lost their children while incarcerated also spoke at the news conference, providing personal testimony as to the necessity of this legislation. The mothers spoke about the difficulties they faced maintaining contact with their children, and some reported child abuse occurring in foster care homes.
Brunilda Rivera, a Brooklyn mom who was imprisoned for 18 months, said her son was deprived of food and repeatedly locked in a room while in foster care. "Most kids want to be with their moms," she said. "It was a bad situation at home, but they put him in a worse situation.
"Even though it's an everyday struggle for us to get our lives together, to get clean and sober and to be a positive role model, we need a chance," she continued. "We definitely need a chance. We need someone to say, 'here, we're going to give you the hand you need and the proper steps to take so that you can be a better person and to be a better parent.'"
Her son, 13-year-old Brandon Rivera, said, "I'm glad that my mom is by my side right now helping other children get their moms back through passing this bill."
http://www.legislativegazette.com/Articles-c-2010-03-01-65767.113122_Prison_moms_want_more_leeway_in_parental_rights_cases.html
Bill sponsor hopeful Senate passage is near
Note from unhappygrammy-This sounds like a good bill for NH seeing as parental rights are terminated every day due to the parents incarceration
By Faith Burkins-Gimzek
Assembly Corrections Committee Chairman Jeffrion Aubry emphasizes the importance of family as an incentive and support system for both parents who go to prison and their children. He is sponsoring a bill aimed at keeping families together when a member is incarcerated. Photo by Smita Bhooplapur, The Legislative Gazette.
March 01, 2010
The Senate seems poised to pass legislation this month that supporters say would help keep intact families separated by the criminal justice and child welfare systems.
Lawmakers, Office of Children and Family Services Commissioner Gladys Carrion and imprisoned women's rights advocates rallied outside the Senate Chamber Feb. 23 to support the Adoption and Safe Families Act Expanded Discretion Bill (S.2233-a/A.5462-a).
"I really am happy to be able to say to you that this legislation will definitely be passing in our house this session," said Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, chair of the Children and Families Committee and the bill's sponsor in the chamber.
"It will give families the fighting chance that they deserve to work towards rebuilding, to work towards keeping connections," said Tamar Kraft-Stolar, director of the Women in Prison Project for the Correctional Association of New York, which coordinated the Feb. 23 news conference. The Correctional Association has made passing this legislation one of its top priorities in its policy agenda for this year.
The Expanded Discretion bill would amend the Adoption and Safe Families Act, a federal law enacted in New York in 1999, which requires, with limited exceptions, foster care agencies to file a petition to terminate parental rights if a child has been in foster care for 15 of the previous 22 months.
Since a woman's median sentence in New York is 36 months, advocates of the bill say a majority of mothers are forced to give up their parental rights, often against the best interest of the child.
The bill has passed unanimously for two consecutive years in the Assembly and has now advanced to its third reading in the Senate.
It reached the Senate floor last session, but was never voted on because of the Senate coup last June.
The proposed legislation would increase a foster care agency's discretion in choosing whether to terminate parental rights and would give agencies the option of taking more time before filing termination of parental rights papers. The bill would also require courts to take into consideration the extenuating circumstances of a parent in the criminal justice system, making it easier for parents incarcerated or in residential substance abuse treatment to retain guardianship and custody of their children.
"[Current law] doesn't reflect the realities of the case and the time needed when the criminal justice system is involved," said Kraft-Stolar. She said there are, as the law stands, exceptions to the 15-month rule, but the exceptions are insufficient.
In the existing law's language, a foster care agency can delay filing termination papers if a child is placed with another family member, if the agency hadn't fulfilled its legal requirements to pursue reunification or if there is a "compelling reason" why it would not be in the best interest of the child to terminate parental rights. "There is some wiggle room … but not enough," Kraft-Stolar said.
According to the bill's justification, "In appropriate circumstances, caseworkers would have more time to work toward reunification or other permanent placements that do not involve severing family bonds forever." The bill memo also notes that this legislation would save the court system time and money by reducing the amount of costly termination hearings.
"What [the current law] does is it tips the balance inappropriately towards terminating parental rights in cases where a parent is in the criminal justice system, even when this outcome is not necessarily in the child's best interest and in the long-term interests of the family," Kraft-Stolar said.
Montgomery, D-Brooklyn, said many parents purposely avoid treatment because they are afraid of losing their children. "We want to make sure that parents can feel a sense of being … empowered as a parent, to be able to have a family when they come back. And that becomes an incentive, in fact, to be able to return as opposed to being a permanent prison person."
"[Incarcerated parent's] rights are terminated based on the fact that a parent's sentence is longer than the … law allows for them to be able to maintain their parental rights. Those children then get taken away, and the results of that are, in too many cases, those children also become part of the criminal justice system. We want to break that cycle," she said.
Assembly Corrections Committee Chairman Jeffrion Aubry, D-Queens, sponsor of the Assembly bill, emphasized the importance of family as an incentive and support system for those returning from prison or residential substance abuse treatment, and believes this bill will decrease re-internment. "We recognize that children are the unseen victims in this system," he said. "It works on both sides — it's good for the children, it's good for the parents."
Sen. Diane Savino, D-Staten Island, a co-sponsor of the bill, spoke from personal experience as a social worker with the state Child Welfare Association.
"There was something I had then that caseworkers today don't have," she said. "That was the discretion to make decisions based upon what I knew about the mother of that child, the relationship with that child, the level of planning and whether or not reunification would be successful. Caseworkers today don't have that discretion."
Mothers who had lost their children while incarcerated also spoke at the news conference, providing personal testimony as to the necessity of this legislation. The mothers spoke about the difficulties they faced maintaining contact with their children, and some reported child abuse occurring in foster care homes.
Brunilda Rivera, a Brooklyn mom who was imprisoned for 18 months, said her son was deprived of food and repeatedly locked in a room while in foster care. "Most kids want to be with their moms," she said. "It was a bad situation at home, but they put him in a worse situation.
"Even though it's an everyday struggle for us to get our lives together, to get clean and sober and to be a positive role model, we need a chance," she continued. "We definitely need a chance. We need someone to say, 'here, we're going to give you the hand you need and the proper steps to take so that you can be a better person and to be a better parent.'"
Her son, 13-year-old Brandon Rivera, said, "I'm glad that my mom is by my side right now helping other children get their moms back through passing this bill."
http://www.legislativegazette.com/Articles-c-2010-03-01-65767.113122_Prison_moms_want_more_leeway_in_parental_rights_cases.html
As You Slide Down the Banister of Life in 2010- Remember
Sent to me from my good friend Bobbi
As You Slide Down the Banister of Life in 2010- Remember
1. Transvestite: A guy who likes to eat, drink
And be Mary..
2. The difference between the Pope and Your boss,
the Pope only expects you to kiss his ring.
3. My mind works like lightning, one brilliant flash and it is gone.
4. The only time the world beats a path to your door is if you're in
the bathroom.
5. It used to be only death and taxes. Now, of course, there's
shipping and handling, too.
6. A husband is someone who, after taking the trash out, gives the
impression that he just cleaned the whole house.
7. My next house will have no kitchen - just vending machines and a
Large trash can.
8. As you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters never
Point the wrong way...
9. Be who you are and say what you feel!
Because those that matter, don't mind!
And those that mind, don't matter!
As You Slide Down the Banister of Life in 2010- Remember
1. Transvestite: A guy who likes to eat, drink
And be Mary..
2. The difference between the Pope and Your boss,
the Pope only expects you to kiss his ring.
3. My mind works like lightning, one brilliant flash and it is gone.
4. The only time the world beats a path to your door is if you're in
the bathroom.
5. It used to be only death and taxes. Now, of course, there's
shipping and handling, too.
6. A husband is someone who, after taking the trash out, gives the
impression that he just cleaned the whole house.
7. My next house will have no kitchen - just vending machines and a
Large trash can.
8. As you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters never
Point the wrong way...
9. Be who you are and say what you feel!
Because those that matter, don't mind!
And those that mind, don't matter!
Handbook suggests that deviations from 'normality' are disorders
Handbook suggests that deviations from 'normality' are disorders
By George F. Will
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Peter De Vries, America's wittiest novelist, died 17 years ago, but his discernment of this country's cultural foibles still amazes. In a 1983 novel, he spotted the tendency of America's therapeutic culture to medicalize character flaws:
"Once terms like identity doubts and midlife crisis become current," De Vries wrote, "the reported cases of them increase by leaps and bounds." And: "Rapid-fire means of communication have brought psychic dilapidation within the reach of the most provincial backwaters, so that large metropolitan centers and educated circles need no longer consider it their exclusive property, nor preen themselves on their special malaises."
Life is about to imitate De Vries's literature, again. The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychiatry's encyclopedia of supposed mental "disorders," is being revised. The 16 years since the last revision evidently were prolific in producing new afflictions. The revision may aggravate the confusion of moral categories.
Today's DSM defines "oppositional defiant disorder" as a pattern of "negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior toward authority figures." Symptoms include "often loses temper," "often deliberately annoys people" or "is often touchy." DSM omits this symptom: "is a teenager."
This DSM defines as "personality disorders" attributes that once were considered character flaws. "Antisocial personality disorder" is "a pervasive pattern of disregard for . . . the rights of others . . . callous, cynical . . . an inflated and arrogant self-appraisal." "Histrionic personality disorder" is "excessive emotionality and attention-seeking." "Narcissistic personality disorder" involves "grandiosity, need for admiration . . . boastful and pretentious." And so on.
If every character blemish or emotional turbulence is a "disorder" akin to a physical disability, legal accommodations are mandatory. Under federal law, "disabilities" include any "mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities"; "mental impairments" include "emotional or mental illness." So there might be a legal entitlement to be a jerk. (See above, "antisocial personality disorder.")
The revised DSM reportedly may include "binge eating disorder" and "hypersexual disorder" ("a great deal of time" devoted to "sexual fantasies and urges" and "planning for and engaging in sexual behavior"). Concerning children, there might be "temper dysregulation disorder with dysphoria."
This last categorization illustrates the serious stakes in the categorization of behaviors. Extremely irritable or aggressive children are frequently diagnosed as bipolar and treated with powerful antipsychotic drugs. This can be a damaging mistake if behavioral modification treatment can mitigate the problem.
Another danger is that childhood eccentricities, sometimes inextricable from creativity, might be labeled "disorders" to be "cured." If 7-year-old Mozart tried composing his concertos today, he might be diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and medicated into barren normality.
Furthermore, intellectual chaos can result from medicalizing the assessment of character. Today's therapeutic ethos, which celebrates curing and disparages judging, expresses the liberal disposition to assume that crime and other problematic behaviors reflect social or biological causation. While this absolves the individual of responsibility, it also strips the individual of personhood and moral dignity.
James Q. Wilson, America's preeminent social scientist, has noted how "abuse excuse" threatens the legal system and society's moral equilibrium. Writing in National Affairs quarterly ("The Future of Blame"), Wilson notes that genetics and neuroscience seem to suggest that self-control is more attenuated -- perhaps to the vanishing point -- than our legal and ethical traditions assume.
The part of the brain that stimulates anger and aggression is larger in men than in women, and the part that restrains anger is smaller in men than in women. "Men," Wilson writes, "by no choice of their own, are far more prone to violence and far less capable of self-restraint than women." That does not, however, absolve violent men of blame. As Wilson says, biology and environment interact. And the social environment includes moral assumptions, sometimes codified in law, concerning expectations about our duty to desire what we ought to desire.
It is scientifically sensible to say that all behavior is in some sense caused. But a society that thinks scientific determinism renders personal responsibility a chimera must consider it absurd not only to condemn depravity but also to praise nobility. Such moral derangement can flow from exaggerated notions of what science teaches, or can teach, about the biological and environmental roots of behavior.
Or -- revisers of the DSM, please note -- confusion can flow from the notion that normality is always obvious and normative, meaning preferable. And the notion that deviations from it should be considered "disorders" to be "cured" rather than stigmatized as offenses against valid moral norms.
georgewill@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022603369.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
By George F. Will
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Peter De Vries, America's wittiest novelist, died 17 years ago, but his discernment of this country's cultural foibles still amazes. In a 1983 novel, he spotted the tendency of America's therapeutic culture to medicalize character flaws:
"Once terms like identity doubts and midlife crisis become current," De Vries wrote, "the reported cases of them increase by leaps and bounds." And: "Rapid-fire means of communication have brought psychic dilapidation within the reach of the most provincial backwaters, so that large metropolitan centers and educated circles need no longer consider it their exclusive property, nor preen themselves on their special malaises."
Life is about to imitate De Vries's literature, again. The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychiatry's encyclopedia of supposed mental "disorders," is being revised. The 16 years since the last revision evidently were prolific in producing new afflictions. The revision may aggravate the confusion of moral categories.
Today's DSM defines "oppositional defiant disorder" as a pattern of "negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior toward authority figures." Symptoms include "often loses temper," "often deliberately annoys people" or "is often touchy." DSM omits this symptom: "is a teenager."
This DSM defines as "personality disorders" attributes that once were considered character flaws. "Antisocial personality disorder" is "a pervasive pattern of disregard for . . . the rights of others . . . callous, cynical . . . an inflated and arrogant self-appraisal." "Histrionic personality disorder" is "excessive emotionality and attention-seeking." "Narcissistic personality disorder" involves "grandiosity, need for admiration . . . boastful and pretentious." And so on.
If every character blemish or emotional turbulence is a "disorder" akin to a physical disability, legal accommodations are mandatory. Under federal law, "disabilities" include any "mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities"; "mental impairments" include "emotional or mental illness." So there might be a legal entitlement to be a jerk. (See above, "antisocial personality disorder.")
The revised DSM reportedly may include "binge eating disorder" and "hypersexual disorder" ("a great deal of time" devoted to "sexual fantasies and urges" and "planning for and engaging in sexual behavior"). Concerning children, there might be "temper dysregulation disorder with dysphoria."
This last categorization illustrates the serious stakes in the categorization of behaviors. Extremely irritable or aggressive children are frequently diagnosed as bipolar and treated with powerful antipsychotic drugs. This can be a damaging mistake if behavioral modification treatment can mitigate the problem.
Another danger is that childhood eccentricities, sometimes inextricable from creativity, might be labeled "disorders" to be "cured." If 7-year-old Mozart tried composing his concertos today, he might be diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and medicated into barren normality.
Furthermore, intellectual chaos can result from medicalizing the assessment of character. Today's therapeutic ethos, which celebrates curing and disparages judging, expresses the liberal disposition to assume that crime and other problematic behaviors reflect social or biological causation. While this absolves the individual of responsibility, it also strips the individual of personhood and moral dignity.
James Q. Wilson, America's preeminent social scientist, has noted how "abuse excuse" threatens the legal system and society's moral equilibrium. Writing in National Affairs quarterly ("The Future of Blame"), Wilson notes that genetics and neuroscience seem to suggest that self-control is more attenuated -- perhaps to the vanishing point -- than our legal and ethical traditions assume.
The part of the brain that stimulates anger and aggression is larger in men than in women, and the part that restrains anger is smaller in men than in women. "Men," Wilson writes, "by no choice of their own, are far more prone to violence and far less capable of self-restraint than women." That does not, however, absolve violent men of blame. As Wilson says, biology and environment interact. And the social environment includes moral assumptions, sometimes codified in law, concerning expectations about our duty to desire what we ought to desire.
It is scientifically sensible to say that all behavior is in some sense caused. But a society that thinks scientific determinism renders personal responsibility a chimera must consider it absurd not only to condemn depravity but also to praise nobility. Such moral derangement can flow from exaggerated notions of what science teaches, or can teach, about the biological and environmental roots of behavior.
Or -- revisers of the DSM, please note -- confusion can flow from the notion that normality is always obvious and normative, meaning preferable. And the notion that deviations from it should be considered "disorders" to be "cured" rather than stigmatized as offenses against valid moral norms.
georgewill@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022603369.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay
Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay
By GARDINER HARRIS and BENEDICT CAREY
Published: June 8, 2008
A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators.
J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
Senator Charles E. Grassley pushed three experts in child psychiatry at Harvard to expose their income from consulting fees.
Multimedia
Graphic
A Doctor’s Underreported Transactions
Dr. Joseph Biederman belatedly reported at least $1.6 million in consulting fees.
By failing to report income, the psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, and a colleague in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Timothy E. Wilens, may have violated federal and university research rules designed to police potential conflicts of interest, according to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Some of their research is financed by government grants.
Like Dr. Biederman, Dr. Wilens belatedly reported earning at least $1.6 million from 2000 to 2007, and another Harvard colleague, Dr. Thomas Spencer, reported earning at least $1 million after being pressed by Mr. Grassley’s investigators. But even these amended disclosures may understate the researchers’ outside income because some entries contradict payment information from drug makers, Mr. Grassley found.
In one example, Dr. Biederman reported no income from Johnson & Johnson for 2001 in a disclosure report filed with the university. When asked to check again, he said he received $3,500. But Johnson & Johnson told Mr. Grassley that it paid him $58,169 in 2001, Mr. Grassley found.
The Harvard group’s consulting arrangements with drug makers were already controversial because of the researchers’ advocacy of unapproved uses of psychiatric medicines in children.
In an e-mailed statement, Dr. Biederman said, “My interests are solely in the advancement of medical treatment through rigorous and objective study,” and he said he took conflict-of-interest policies “very seriously.” Drs. Wilens and Spencer said in e-mailed statements that they thought they had complied with conflict-of-interest rules.
John Burklow, a spokesman for the National Institutes of Health, said: “If there have been violations of N.I.H. policy — and if research integrity has been compromised — we will take all the appropriate action within our power to hold those responsible accountable. This would be completely unacceptable behavior, and N.I.H. will not tolerate it.”
The federal grants received by Drs. Biederman and Wilens were administered by Massachusetts General Hospital, which in 2005 won $287 million in such grants. The health institutes could place restrictions on the hospital’s grants or even suspend them altogether.
Alyssa Kneller, a Harvard spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement: “The information released by Senator Grassley suggests that, in certain instances, each doctor may have failed to disclose outside income from pharmaceutical companies and other entities that should have been disclosed.”
Ms. Kneller said the doctors had been referred to a university conflict committee for review.
Mr. Grassley sent letters on Wednesday to Harvard and the health institutes outlining his investigators’ findings, and he placed the letters along with his comments in The Congressional Record.
Dr. Biederman is one of the most influential researchers in child psychiatry and is widely admired for focusing the field’s attention on its most troubled young patients. Although many of his studies are small and often financed by drug makers, his work helped to fuel a controversial 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder, which is characterized by severe mood swings, and a rapid rise in the use of antipsychotic medicines in children. The Grassley investigation did not address research quality.
Doctors have known for years that antipsychotic drugs, sometimes called major tranquilizers, can quickly subdue children. But youngsters appear to be especially susceptible to the weight gain and metabolic problems caused by the drugs, and it is far from clear that the medications improve children’s lives over time, experts say.
In the last 25 years, drug and device makers have displaced the federal government as the primary source of research financing, and industry support is vital to many university research programs. But as corporate research executives recruit the brightest scientists, their brethren in marketing departments have discovered that some of these same scientists can be terrific pitchmen.
To protect research integrity, the National Institutes of Health require researchers to report to universities earnings of $10,000 or more per year, for instance, in consulting money from makers of drugs also studied by the researchers in federally financed trials. Universities manage financial conflicts by requiring that the money be disclosed to research subjects, among other measures.
The health institutes last year awarded more than $23 billion in grants to more than 325,000 researchers at over 3,000 universities, and auditing the potential conflicts of each grantee would be impossible, health institutes officials have long insisted. So the government relies on universities.
Multimedia
Graphic
A Doctor’s Underreported Transactions
Universities ask professors to report their conflicts but do almost nothing to verify the accuracy of these voluntary disclosures.
“It’s really been an honor system thing,” said Dr. Robert Alpern, dean of Yale School of Medicine. “If somebody tells us that a pharmaceutical company pays them $80,000 a year, I don’t even know how to check on that.”
Some states have laws requiring drug makers to disclose payments made to doctors, and Mr. Grassley and others have sponsored legislation to create a national registry.
Lawmakers have been concerned in recent years about the use of unapproved medications in children and the influence of industry money.
Mr. Grassley asked Harvard for the three researchers’ financial disclosure reports from 2000 through 2007 and asked some drug makers to list payments made to them.
“Basically, these forms were a mess,” Mr. Grassley said in comments he entered into The Congressional Record on Wednesday. “Over the last seven years, it looked like they had taken a couple hundred thousand dollars.”
Prompted by Mr. Grassley’s interest, Harvard asked the researchers to re-examine their disclosure reports.
In the new disclosures, the trio’s outside consulting income jumped but was still contradicted by reports sent to Mr. Grassley from some of the companies. In some cases, the income seems to have put the researchers in violation of university and federal rules.
In 2000, for instance, Dr. Biederman received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study in children Strattera, an Eli Lilly drug for attention deficit disorder. Dr. Biederman reported to Harvard that he received less than $10,000 from Lilly that year, but the company told Mr. Grassley that it paid Dr. Biederman more than $14,000 in 2000, Mr. Grassley’s letter stated.
At the time, Harvard forbade professors from conducting clinical trials if they received payments over $10,000 from the company whose product was being studied, and federal rules required such conflicts to be managed.
Mr. Grassley said these discrepancies demonstrated profound flaws in the oversight of researchers’ financial conflicts and the need for a national registry. But the disclosures may also cloud the work of one of the most prominent group of child psychiatrists in the world.
In the past decade, Dr. Biederman and his colleagues have promoted the aggressive diagnosis and drug treatment of childhood bipolar disorder, a mood problem once thought confined to adults. They have maintained that the disorder was underdiagnosed in children and could be treated with antipsychotic drugs, medications invented to treat schizophrenia.
Other researchers have made similar assertions. As a result, pediatric bipolar diagnoses and antipsychotic drug use in children have soared. Some 500,000 children and teenagers were given at least one prescription for an antipsychotic in 2007, including 20,500 under 6 years of age, according to Medco Health Solutions, a pharmacy benefit manager.
Few psychiatrists today doubt that bipolar disorder can strike in the early teenage years, or that many of the children being given the diagnosis are deeply distressed.
“I consider Dr. Biederman a true visionary in recognizing this illness in children,” said Susan Resko, director of the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation, “and he’s not only saved many lives but restored hope to thousands of families across the country.”
Longtime critics of the group see its influence differently. “They have given the Harvard imprimatur to this commercial experimentation on children,” said Vera Sharav, president and founder of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a patient advocacy group.
Many researchers strongly disagree over what bipolar looks like in youngsters, and some now fear the definition has been expanded unnecessarily, due in part to the Harvard group.
The group published the results of a string of drug trials from 2001 to 2006, but the studies were so small and loosely designed that they were largely inconclusive, experts say. In some studies testing antipsychotic drugs, the group defined improvement as a decline of 30 percent or more on a scale called the Young Mania Rating Scale — well below the 50 percent change that most researchers now use as the standard.
Controlling for bias is especially important in such work, given that the scale is subjective, and raters often depend on reports from parents and children, several top psychiatrists said.
More broadly, they said, revelations of undisclosed payments from drug makers to leading researchers are especially damaging for psychiatry.
“The price we pay for these kinds of revelations is credibility, and we just can’t afford to lose any more of that in this field,” said Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, executive director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, which finances psychiatric studies. “In the area of child psychiatry in particular, we know much less than we should, and we desperately need research that is not influenced by industry money.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/us/08conflict.html?_r=2
By GARDINER HARRIS and BENEDICT CAREY
Published: June 8, 2008
A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators.
J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
Senator Charles E. Grassley pushed three experts in child psychiatry at Harvard to expose their income from consulting fees.
Multimedia
Graphic
A Doctor’s Underreported Transactions
Dr. Joseph Biederman belatedly reported at least $1.6 million in consulting fees.
By failing to report income, the psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, and a colleague in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Timothy E. Wilens, may have violated federal and university research rules designed to police potential conflicts of interest, according to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Some of their research is financed by government grants.
Like Dr. Biederman, Dr. Wilens belatedly reported earning at least $1.6 million from 2000 to 2007, and another Harvard colleague, Dr. Thomas Spencer, reported earning at least $1 million after being pressed by Mr. Grassley’s investigators. But even these amended disclosures may understate the researchers’ outside income because some entries contradict payment information from drug makers, Mr. Grassley found.
In one example, Dr. Biederman reported no income from Johnson & Johnson for 2001 in a disclosure report filed with the university. When asked to check again, he said he received $3,500. But Johnson & Johnson told Mr. Grassley that it paid him $58,169 in 2001, Mr. Grassley found.
The Harvard group’s consulting arrangements with drug makers were already controversial because of the researchers’ advocacy of unapproved uses of psychiatric medicines in children.
In an e-mailed statement, Dr. Biederman said, “My interests are solely in the advancement of medical treatment through rigorous and objective study,” and he said he took conflict-of-interest policies “very seriously.” Drs. Wilens and Spencer said in e-mailed statements that they thought they had complied with conflict-of-interest rules.
John Burklow, a spokesman for the National Institutes of Health, said: “If there have been violations of N.I.H. policy — and if research integrity has been compromised — we will take all the appropriate action within our power to hold those responsible accountable. This would be completely unacceptable behavior, and N.I.H. will not tolerate it.”
The federal grants received by Drs. Biederman and Wilens were administered by Massachusetts General Hospital, which in 2005 won $287 million in such grants. The health institutes could place restrictions on the hospital’s grants or even suspend them altogether.
Alyssa Kneller, a Harvard spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement: “The information released by Senator Grassley suggests that, in certain instances, each doctor may have failed to disclose outside income from pharmaceutical companies and other entities that should have been disclosed.”
Ms. Kneller said the doctors had been referred to a university conflict committee for review.
Mr. Grassley sent letters on Wednesday to Harvard and the health institutes outlining his investigators’ findings, and he placed the letters along with his comments in The Congressional Record.
Dr. Biederman is one of the most influential researchers in child psychiatry and is widely admired for focusing the field’s attention on its most troubled young patients. Although many of his studies are small and often financed by drug makers, his work helped to fuel a controversial 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder, which is characterized by severe mood swings, and a rapid rise in the use of antipsychotic medicines in children. The Grassley investigation did not address research quality.
Doctors have known for years that antipsychotic drugs, sometimes called major tranquilizers, can quickly subdue children. But youngsters appear to be especially susceptible to the weight gain and metabolic problems caused by the drugs, and it is far from clear that the medications improve children’s lives over time, experts say.
In the last 25 years, drug and device makers have displaced the federal government as the primary source of research financing, and industry support is vital to many university research programs. But as corporate research executives recruit the brightest scientists, their brethren in marketing departments have discovered that some of these same scientists can be terrific pitchmen.
To protect research integrity, the National Institutes of Health require researchers to report to universities earnings of $10,000 or more per year, for instance, in consulting money from makers of drugs also studied by the researchers in federally financed trials. Universities manage financial conflicts by requiring that the money be disclosed to research subjects, among other measures.
The health institutes last year awarded more than $23 billion in grants to more than 325,000 researchers at over 3,000 universities, and auditing the potential conflicts of each grantee would be impossible, health institutes officials have long insisted. So the government relies on universities.
Multimedia
Graphic
A Doctor’s Underreported Transactions
Universities ask professors to report their conflicts but do almost nothing to verify the accuracy of these voluntary disclosures.
“It’s really been an honor system thing,” said Dr. Robert Alpern, dean of Yale School of Medicine. “If somebody tells us that a pharmaceutical company pays them $80,000 a year, I don’t even know how to check on that.”
Some states have laws requiring drug makers to disclose payments made to doctors, and Mr. Grassley and others have sponsored legislation to create a national registry.
Lawmakers have been concerned in recent years about the use of unapproved medications in children and the influence of industry money.
Mr. Grassley asked Harvard for the three researchers’ financial disclosure reports from 2000 through 2007 and asked some drug makers to list payments made to them.
“Basically, these forms were a mess,” Mr. Grassley said in comments he entered into The Congressional Record on Wednesday. “Over the last seven years, it looked like they had taken a couple hundred thousand dollars.”
Prompted by Mr. Grassley’s interest, Harvard asked the researchers to re-examine their disclosure reports.
In the new disclosures, the trio’s outside consulting income jumped but was still contradicted by reports sent to Mr. Grassley from some of the companies. In some cases, the income seems to have put the researchers in violation of university and federal rules.
In 2000, for instance, Dr. Biederman received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study in children Strattera, an Eli Lilly drug for attention deficit disorder. Dr. Biederman reported to Harvard that he received less than $10,000 from Lilly that year, but the company told Mr. Grassley that it paid Dr. Biederman more than $14,000 in 2000, Mr. Grassley’s letter stated.
At the time, Harvard forbade professors from conducting clinical trials if they received payments over $10,000 from the company whose product was being studied, and federal rules required such conflicts to be managed.
Mr. Grassley said these discrepancies demonstrated profound flaws in the oversight of researchers’ financial conflicts and the need for a national registry. But the disclosures may also cloud the work of one of the most prominent group of child psychiatrists in the world.
In the past decade, Dr. Biederman and his colleagues have promoted the aggressive diagnosis and drug treatment of childhood bipolar disorder, a mood problem once thought confined to adults. They have maintained that the disorder was underdiagnosed in children and could be treated with antipsychotic drugs, medications invented to treat schizophrenia.
Other researchers have made similar assertions. As a result, pediatric bipolar diagnoses and antipsychotic drug use in children have soared. Some 500,000 children and teenagers were given at least one prescription for an antipsychotic in 2007, including 20,500 under 6 years of age, according to Medco Health Solutions, a pharmacy benefit manager.
Few psychiatrists today doubt that bipolar disorder can strike in the early teenage years, or that many of the children being given the diagnosis are deeply distressed.
“I consider Dr. Biederman a true visionary in recognizing this illness in children,” said Susan Resko, director of the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation, “and he’s not only saved many lives but restored hope to thousands of families across the country.”
Longtime critics of the group see its influence differently. “They have given the Harvard imprimatur to this commercial experimentation on children,” said Vera Sharav, president and founder of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a patient advocacy group.
Many researchers strongly disagree over what bipolar looks like in youngsters, and some now fear the definition has been expanded unnecessarily, due in part to the Harvard group.
The group published the results of a string of drug trials from 2001 to 2006, but the studies were so small and loosely designed that they were largely inconclusive, experts say. In some studies testing antipsychotic drugs, the group defined improvement as a decline of 30 percent or more on a scale called the Young Mania Rating Scale — well below the 50 percent change that most researchers now use as the standard.
Controlling for bias is especially important in such work, given that the scale is subjective, and raters often depend on reports from parents and children, several top psychiatrists said.
More broadly, they said, revelations of undisclosed payments from drug makers to leading researchers are especially damaging for psychiatry.
“The price we pay for these kinds of revelations is credibility, and we just can’t afford to lose any more of that in this field,” said Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, executive director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, which finances psychiatric studies. “In the area of child psychiatry in particular, we know much less than we should, and we desperately need research that is not influenced by industry money.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/us/08conflict.html?_r=2
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